Paul McNamara’s recent post titled ‘The Shocking Truth (and Lies) about ESD” on the Network World‘s documents some stories of damage caused by ESD.
One notes:
I once zapped my home’s thermostat when I was attempting to change the temperature setting. The LCD went blank and refused to come back on. I ended up replacing the unit.
While the damage caused by ESD can seem like a mystery, the basic practices of controlling ESD when handling ESD susceptible items are pretty straight forward.
- Establish an ESD Protected Area. It can be one bench or a whole facility.
- Ground all conductors including operators.
- Use a dissipative grounded surface for ESD susceptible products to be placed on if needed.
- Remove all non-process essential insulators from the ESD Protected Area. Use ionization to control charges on process essential insulators.
- If an ESD susceptible item needs to be removed from the ESD Protected Area, place it in a shielding bag or storage container that forms a faraday cage.
Desco has been making products to be used in an ESD Protected Area for over 30 years.